start the countdown
by CherryFlavoredChalk
Summary: I'm high as a kite, I just might start to check you out. Lavi/Allen, crack.


**a/n:** Inspired by oh my glitter and garter's very fabulous LaviAllen standalone that outweighs mine in various ways. I'm jellin', kiddo.

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**[Start the _Countdown_]**

_this one's for the boy_

Everything about that boy is terrifyingly systematic—from the way he jerks his bony boy-knees up to the piano to the nervous-quick way that he eyes the crowd, his head bowed as if he expects them to rush the piano. He combs his fingers through his hair and quirks his lips upwards like he's studied the art of making a smile but hasn't quite perfected it yet. He lowers his lips to the microphone and accidentally spits on it; he wipes it off with the corner of his sleeve and whispers a song title—something about spotless minds and eternal sunshine that Lavi doesn't quite catch because, with the double-edged sword of being blissfully drunk and stoned, he lacks the ability to concentrate.

"He's kind of hot." Lavi explains carefully to the top of the bar. They are far, far too young to be consuming any type of alcohol, but the awesomeness known as the fake I.D. had been bestowed upon their seriously unworthy souls, so it was all good. Of course, it would've been better if the guy in the picture had actually looked like Lavi instead of Kanda's foster brother's cousin, but you can't have everything.

"You're kind of gay." Kanda snorts. But he looks up at the piano player and says concernedly, "Fucking robot boy, he's like R2D2's bastard baby." He sends this statement out into the air like Lavi's happiness depends on this very assemblance of words.

The piano player looks a little nervous; he strikes a few keys—badly, Lavi notes, because even in his drunken n' drugged stupor he can differentiate between good and bad solfege—and attempts to sing over the bar's din. Someone throws a can of cow piss masquerading as "Natty Light" at his head and he squeaks.

Lavi breathes through his nose and turns to Kanda, who's passing time by seductively glaring at the bartender. He puts his mouth to his friend's ear and asks earnestly, "Are you drunk enough to dance with me?"

Kanda gives him the finger and wobbles away like he's on the catwalk in Milan. He calls something over his shoulder about getting chicks and macking biddies. "Ten dollars says he fucks a man with a briefcase in the bathroom." Lavi says smugly to the Asian girl on his left. She giggles and says she's not a betting girl but passes him the tenner under the table, her leg dragging its way up and down his tight jeans.

The robotic piano boy is still jabbing frantically at the piano like he's trying to resurrect it and the girl next to him is forcing him to share fruity little drinks with her (fruit for the fruit). Kanda hasn't come back—either he really has found a girl or he's with Briefcase Bob, his new man. Neither seems likely.

"I wanna be gay with him." Lavi says conversationally to the Asian chick, pointing to the young piano player, who looks like he might seriously be sick. She looks shocked; he downs her apple martini without apology. Then, he amends: "Gay without clothes, I mean." She looks tearful and unhappy and like she definitely _won't_ be buying him anything else, which is unfortunate 'cause she looked legal, but whatever. She hops off the stool and says something about wasting time and him being a manipulative creep and that she wouldn't give him her number even if he _begged_ for it.

Lavi tells her that she's welcome to come back anytime—provided, of course, that she grows a cock.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS UP, MAN?" Oh, god, _Kanda's_ back. His pupils are like pinpricks and he's swaying slightly, his hip jutted out to the side for balance. For a moment, Lavi thinks that the apocalypse is coming, because _holy shit_ he's never seen Kanda smile like that before. Excluding the times when someone appeared to be in mortal peril, 'cause that's how Yuu gets his kicks, the sadist motherfucker.

"Hey, man, where'd you go?" he asks. Kanda gestures vaguely to the people behind him, babbling about fun in the sun and 'his tongue was like whoa, but I lost my shoe'. He sticks his foot in Lavi's face and scrunches his nose up in this way that makes him look all of four. "My SHOE," he wails dramatically before exiting, twitching his hips from side to side like a tranny in training.

Up on the stage, the piano boy clutches at the microphone and wheezes, "This one's for the girl."

Lavi suspects that it's meant to be a slow song, but the kid at the piano's playing it all wrong so it's some jazzy piece that requires spastic rave-dancing and the occasional shimmy. He hops off his stool and obliges, attracting the admiring stare of a miniature goth-baby with spiked hair. She looks like she's twelve and walks like she's nineteen; pelvis jutted forwards, platform Mary Janes slapping at the ground. "Wanna dance?" she coos, and he's too drunk to care.

She pushes him outside, against the wall, and kisses him like she's been waiting for him. It feels kind of great, up until she fucking bites him and he has to shove her away, muttering something about how she kissed like a man but couldn't hide her ovaries—stupid, stupid shit that probably hurt her feelings but she managed to mask pretty well, given the way she clocked him in his jaw before she took her leave.

God, this wasn't really worth it anymore and he needed a cigarette like whoa. Kanda, who was walking past him arm-in-arm with either one of those girls who wanted to be boys or a boy who just looked like a girl, passed him by, flicking his lighter's cap up and down.

"Spare me a light, baby? And a cig?" Lavi called, fluttering his fingers towards him in what he sincerely hopes is a sensual wave.

Kanda sniggers and sprints away with his boy/girl toy, leaving his voice to fade into the backdrop of bad music and cigarette smoke. _"Fuuuuuck yooouuu."_ It almost sounds like an after thought, or like the wind is saying it.

"You'll have to buy me dinner first!" Lavi snarls approximately three minutes too late. Dammit. He hasn't progressed in the area of snappy comebacks since junior high, which is just plain sad.

And then: an angel.

"Um, I got one." It's the robotic piano boy from earlier, having somehow oozed his way out of the bar and to the sidewalk, offering up a lighter. Oh, yes, he's an angel— a gay angel, if those exist. His eyes are ringed with kohl and bright, his hair pulled back with sequined bobby pins and a single, neon blue scrunchie. "A light, that is." He laughs, nervously, and pulls at his leather pants like he wants to take them off.

Lavi ignores the lighter, ambitions to get cancer forgotten. "I like you," he says fervently, and he can't tell if it's the smoke or the beer that's prompting him to act like he's Jerry Springer or Maury or the friggin' _Real World_ and spill his guts like some teenage girl with an eating disorder and no friends would.

To his credit, the robotic piano boy takes it in stride. "Alright, then," he says affably, pocketing the lighter. He stares at the sidewalk for a second, and then looks up at Lavi like he's the reincarnation of Prince Charming. _I don't got a horse or a castle, baby_, he thinks, and grins.

"Kiss me?" says his robotic piano-man, and he leans forward, eyes shut with the lashes putting shadows on his cheeks. He looks like a girl when he does that, and Lavi wrinkles his nose…just in time for the piano boy to see and draw back like he's been slapped.

"No, uh, I mean—Ah, fuck it, c'mere," Lavi whines, and grabs the back of the kid's neck. They're close enough to share breath with each other, and he manages to grit out, "On the count of three, okay?"

"Okay." The kid grins—more like a boy, and Lavi wishes that he knew he wouldn't forget all of this the next day. "One."

"Two." He's closer than before, if it's possible. His lips are chapped and a bit ripped from where his teeth's been tugging at them.

"Three—"

And when they kiss, he swears to god he hears fireworks.

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End file.
